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Can I love my fat body?

It’s midnight and I’m hooked up to the breast pump. I turn on the TV to keep me awake, too exhausted to load up Netflix. Three commercials in a row target my body.

Lose weight fast. Look good in a bathing suit. Feel good about yourself.

I look down at my stomach rolls, the extra heft of my thighs, the way my calves bulge with fat and I’m instantly disgusted and angry.

I should not have gained so much weight during this pregnancy.

I should not have banked on pumping to take off the weight.

I should have done better.

I grab my phone and google the Keto diet, price the latest Weight Watchers program and research what Sono Bello does to resculpt your body. I download two new food tracking apps, open a note file and make myself a workout schedule.

Time to get serious again.

No more eating carbs or sugar.

No more fruit.

Stop being fat and lazy.

You are gross.

Maybe you need weight loss surgery so you can’t enjoy food anymore. That will teach you.

You should punish yourself for being weak.

You’re disgusting.

You don’t deserve anything good until you get the weight off.

I say all this to myself as I’m pumping milk for my sweet nephew who, as a surrogate, I successfully grew and birthed only a few short months ago.

I say all this to myself as I tell my daughter to love her body and to stop comparing herself to others.

I say all this to myself…and I believe it.

All of it.

For a moment, the hate for my body is so intense I wish I could rip the fleshy fat off with my bare hands. It would be worth it to not look and feel like this.

I go to sleep with all the plans and all the hate.

When I wake up the anger has faded, but the disgust lingers around me like a sunburn. I shower and step on the scale. I know the number, but it hits me like a bullet between my eyes and I stagger away from it. The towel, the one that doesn’t quite fit around me anymore, falls to the floor.

My daughter walks in and I focus all my energy on taking air deep inside and holding it. I stand, naked, shaking slightly, and take slow, gut-filling breaths in as she talks to me about the dream she had. She’s in her underwear and I’m keenly aware of the curves of her body and my emotions are complicated and ugly.

A vile snake built of guilt and shame slithers around me and stings my skin all over.

My daughter keeps talking. I can’t hear her, but I see the light in her eyes and the way she lounges on my bed. Her beauty is an undeniable force. I continue to stare at her until she is in focus and I can hear the words she is saying. I get lost in her dreams and her voice until everything else fades away.

It’s been several weeks and the sting of that hate still remains. To fight back, I found several body-positive Instagram accounts to follow. I look at their images daily; bikini-clad on a bicycle, doing yard work in cute shorts, eating food and kissing their spouses. I read their words and I want to believe.

Is it possible to love me at this weight? Do they believe what they are writing? Are they happy?

In two days, I leave for a trip with my husband to Paris. Instead of joy, this is what I’m thinking: “I’m the stereotypical fat American,” “what can I wear to not stand out” and “I wish I had more time to lose weight.”

I want to be excited, but this fat on my body feels like it’s holding me back.

It’s all I can see.

It’s all I can focus on.

Weight issues are complicated. It’s not simply a matter of calories in and calories out. I put on this weight because I was pregnant, yes, but also because I had anxiety about being a surrogate. I was scared because my sister and brother-in-law, the beautiful people I grew the baby for, had lost my sweet niece and we were all still grieving. I gained the weight because I had a bleed the first time I went to the gym after the embryo transfer and I convinced myself I’d lost the baby because I was vain and didn’t want to gain weight. I tried water aerobics but had a panic attack because I feared the water would suddenly be filled with blood and it would all be my fault. I ate because I wanted the baby to grow big and healthy and I was terrified all the time I’d do something wrong.

I gained this weight by eating calories, yes, but it’s more than that.

It’s all mixed up with emotions and the history of my body. It’s so much more than food.

Yes, I’m overweight. Yes, it’s not healthy.

But this is also the truth: This 42-year-old fat body grew a baby and birthed it. This 42-year-old fat body produced nearly 5,000 ounces of milk. This 42-year-old fat body cleaned up a very messy garage, took several loads to the dump, cleaned out every closet in the house, cleared a year worth of weeds away, chopped down a tree and daily drives her kids to all their activities.

Even with the extra weight, this body is doing all the things I love.

Isn’t that worth something?

Yes, I want to lose weight and be stronger. I want to feel better in my clothes and not be as winded when I run up the stairs. I want to chase after my little nephew when he starts running around. I want to do everything I can to reduce my risk of heart disease and injury.

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7 thoughts on “Can I love my fat body?”

yes you can, and you should. We all need to love ourselves just the way we are right now. Its always okay to want to improve, but it is not okay to hate yourself while you are doing it. I have the same struggles. Every morning I shower and look at my out of shape jiggly old body and I hate it. But I keep going and moving and loving and enjoying and living, and so should we all.

You can and you must! How can you hate a body that gave you and your family a healthy miracle and continues to nourish it? How can you hate a body that houses a mind that writes with such honesty and bravery? how can you hate a body the houses a heart that stopped to rescue a family stuck on the highway. You are lovely. You are healthy and strong. Get healthier and stronger if you feel you must but don’t hate the very equipment that will allow this to happen. Most of all you have a daughter who will first learn how to have a relationship with her own body from you. Be gentle with yourself, after all, your body, like most things, responds best to kindness. Love you, Bridgette.

We must love the way we are. However, being overweight carries some serious risk for health. I was my heaviest in 2016, and was diagnosed with a metabolic syndrome causing some serious damage to my liver. I had hypertension for last six years. Fatty liver was grade 3( grade four is serious fibrosis). The only cure was to lose weight in a healthy manner. Despite our preoccupations and limitations, efforts should be made to get in shape.

bodies are just the shells that house the true us, you have done and are doing incredible and amazing things, and as you say, your bodys the thing that’s allowed a lot of what you’ve so amazingly done and continue to do. you are obviously a person who should love yourself, and i suspect is especially adored and loved by those around you, and yes the body might not be what you want, but look at what it’s done for you and your family :). if and when, at a time for you, with the support and love of your closest people, you decide you might want to change your body, then you will.